Elastic scoring is a style of orchestration

Orchestration

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...

 or music arrangement

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

 that was first used by the Australian composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...

.

Purpose

This technique of orchestration is used to provide composers with the option of allowing a diverse group of voices or instrumentalists the ability to perform their music. An example of this is when a composer or arranger provides extra sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

 parts so a flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 quartet (four flutes) can play the same piece as a group comprising two flutes, alto flute and bass flute

Bass flute

The bass flute is the bass member of the flute family. It is in the key of C, pitched one octave below the concert flute. Because of the length of its tube , it is usually made with a "J" shaped head joint, which brings the embouchure hole within reach of the player...

, resulting a choir-like sound. In other words, a subtle re-engineering of the original work.

This technique involves making extra and/or interchangeable musical parts which provide substitutions for more or less musicians depending on what is required for an individual performance. This also allows a musical work to be played in smaller communities where the required instruments may not always be available.

One of the main tenets of elastic scoring is that the new arrangement preserve as much as possible the original interval

Interval (music)

In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

 relationship (to the closest octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

) between notes while not being overly concerned with timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

 (tone colour) or number of instruments. Timbre is the aspect of music

Aspect of music

An aspect of music is any characteristic, dimension, or element taken as a part or component of music.-European music:The traditional musicological or European-influenced aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influenced classical music, so 7 basic elements of...

 varied most through changing timbre or number of instruments.

Techniques

Besides providing alternative instrumentation in the form of sheet music parts, the elastic scoring concept allows three subsets of scoring music.

Lateral scoring

Lateral scoring can be said to have occurred when a piece of music is set for one or more instruments from the original number of instruments. An example of this is if a piece of music set for flute and piano is re-scored for clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 and piano. In this instance, the intervallic relationships remain the same, but the tone colour has changed.

Expansion scoring

Expansion scoring is a style of arranging or orchestration that lets composers and arrangers enlarge the original work from a smaller score to a larger one. An example of this is when a string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 is expanded to become a piece for string orchestra

String orchestra

A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...

.

Contraction scoring

Contraction scoring lets composers and arrangers reduce the original work from a larger score to a smaller score, such as when an orchestral work is reduced to piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 part. The resulting piano score is more commonly known as a piano reduction

Piano reduction

A piano reduction is sheet music for the piano that was once music for other instruments that was reduced to its most basic components within a two line staff for piano. It is also considered a style of orchestration or music arrangement less well known as contraction scoring, a subset of elastic...

.

Composers/Arrangers who use elastic scoring

• Percy Grainger
  Percy Grainger
  George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...
  
   (1882–1961, Australia/United States)
• Michael Blake
  Michael Blake (composer)
  Michael Blake is a South African contemporary classical music composer.The composer studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and lectured at Goldsmiths College, University of London...
  
   (born 1961, South Africa)

External links

• "Harvest hymn" (1940) by Percy Grainger, for elastic scoring (2 instruments up to massed orchestra, with or without voices) at the National Library of Australia
  National Library of Australia
  The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...